Saurabh Somani, Jarrod Kimber
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
After the IPL 2024 auction, Gujarat Titans had a distinctly 2015 flavour in their pace attack, buying Umesh Yadav for INR 5.8 crore. Umesh joined Mohammed Shami and Mohit Sharma, a reunion of sorts for the pace trio that took India to the semifinals of the 2015 World Cup unbeaten.
Even in that group though, Shami was the standout. His average (17.3) and economy (4.8) were ahead of Umesh and Mohit. And in the years since, Shami has hit a different level across formats. When Titans brought the band back together, it was always going to be Shami who was the leader of the attack. When he was ruled out of the IPL, it was a serious blow to their plans. Five games into the 2024 season, that Shami sized void is still being felt.
Shami took 48 wickets for the Titans across IPL 2022 and 2023, with 28 of them coming in the Powerplay. His incisive hostility up top often meant Titans could control the innings early, and had a domino effect on how the rest of their bowling resources would be distributed.
Five games into IPL 2024, even a cursory look at how Shami’s absence has impacted Titans’ powerplay figures is stark.
The powerplay average was 27.33 in IPL 2022 – the second best among all ten teams in the competition. In IPL 2023, it rose to 32.52, perhaps an expected rise given the introduction of the Impact Sub and teams’ consequent willingness to go harder earlier. And Titans were still third best in the league in the powerplay in 2023 too. The contrast with 2024 is clear. Without Shami in the ranks, they’re just not taking as many wickets up top as they were.
Without the regular wickets, their economy rates have suffered too.
The economy shows a similar trend to the average. So the lack of powerplay wickets is not being offset by the strangling of runs. They’ve been giving up more runs, and striking less frequently in the powerplay this year.
When Shami’s wicket-taking ability in the powerplay is put in context alongside the rest of Titans’ powerplay bowlers, it’s evident just how much impact he has had.
It’s obvious that a bowler of Shami’s class, nous and experience would be missed, but even so, putting a number to that shows the magnitude of the effect he had. In 2022, the other powerplay bowlers were also pulling their weight, but in 2023 it was virtually a one-man show in the powerplay. Titans came within a ball of winning a second successive IPL title in 2023, but without Shami, they probably wouldn’t have got so far.
It’s not just the number of wickets taken either. Shami’s wickets were of top-order batters who can generally do a lot of damage if they go deep into an innings. Put simply, taking the wickets of Rohit Sharma or Quinton de Kock early counts for a lot more than taking out a batter at No.7 cheaply. This is reflected in measuring his True Wickets, which is the difference between a bowler’s wickets taken and the expected wickets of the average bowler who bowls the same overs.
In 2022, Shami took 20 wickets, whereas the expected number of wickets for someone bowling his overs was 18.27. In 2023, the over-performance was formidable: the expected number of wickets for Shami’s overs were just 22.48, but he took 28.
Similarly, the true Economy Rate – the difference between the bowler’s economy and the economy of the average bowler that bowls the same overs – highlights Shami’s value further.
In 2022, Shami was very slightly more expensive than expected. The variance should be more than acceptable for an attacking bowler, who gave up very marginally more runs but got more wickets than expected. In 2023, even that bit was sorted. Shami was not only taking a LOT more wickets than expected, he was also giving up fewer runs than the expected value.
The domino effect of Shami’s absence has meant Titans have to spread their prime bowling resource thinner. In other words, Rashid Khan has been stretched. When Shami was doing his thing in the powerplay, Rashid would come on in the middle overs and shut teams down. Titans won 10 games each in the league phases of both IPL 2022 and IPL 2023, topping the table both times. Of course they were well served by several of their batters, but the bowling one-two punch that Shami and Rashid delivered made the batters’ jobs that much easier.
Without Shami now, Rashid’s overs have been spread across phases a lot more. And he’s been coming into the attack with opposition teams in more favourable positions, because the wickets taken in the powerplay have reduced drastically.
The over phases have been divided into four: the powerplay (overs 1-6), the first set of the middle (overs 7 to 11), the second set of the middle (overs 12 to 16) and the death (overs 17 to 20). In IPL 2022 and 2023, Rashid’s overs were heavily concentrated in the middle. In IPL 2024, Titans have needed him in each phase.
It’s still not late in the tournament, but this is a problem Titans will have to live with. There is no replacement for Shami looming on the horizon, and right now, they’ve won only two of their five matches. How they deal with the void left by Shami in the second half of their tournament could define where they end up finishing.
